Seven Top Models Assume Unlikely New Professions in the French Video Artist's New Short

The lives of a mechanic, maid and lifeguard take on glamorous new guises with a little help from models including Dorothea Barth Jorgensen, Cameron Russell and Hilary Rhoda in this new short from French video artist Marie Vic. Gearing up for the grueling month of fashion shows around the globe, the seven beauties in the film, all represented by Elite New York City, pose and preen in a tongue-in-cheek take on an alternative career path. “I like to play with props and I really take pleasure seeing things out of context,” explains Vic, who received an MFA in photography from Parsons The New School for Design and has exhibited at the Hendershot Gallery and Eyebeam in New York. “I wanted to compose an eclectic collection of ambiances where the models interact with an arrangement of accessories in a given area of New York to create an oxymoronic situation.” The varied locations include The Mark Hotel in Upper East Side Manhattan, a vogueing ball in Harlem and the boardwalk of Brighton Beach. Vic, who handled every aspect of the production apart from the music, filmed one model individually in each of the locales to create the disparate tableaux. As the director says: “The only thing that runs through the whole video is one pair of Pierre Hardy shoes!” We caught up with Maryland-born Rhoda about the pitfalls and necessities of fashion week.